Route of ascent and descent: First visit: Approached from Tarn Crag – described as a ‘ridge route’ in Wainwright, but to call it a ‘ridge’ is pushing it; it’s more of a gently sloping upland. Left on the equally dubious ‘ridge’ to High Raise.

Second visit: Came up from Blea Rigg (slightly more case to be called a ridge), left for Tarn Crag.

What Mr Wainwright says (from page 2 of his chapter): “Sergeant Man is merely a rocky excrescence at the edge of the broad expanse forming the top of High Raise, but is so prominent an object and offers so compelling a challenge (in these respects being far superior to the summit of High Raise itself) that it is often given preference over the main fell as the target of a day’s outing, and for that reason it is deserving of a separate chapter.”

Sergeant Man, looking east; mist fills the vale of Grasmere behind

What I say: This wasn’t quite a case of feeling that a fell didn’t really deserve a separate chapter but as Wainwright says, beyond it’s rocky final thirty feet or so Sergeant Man doesn’t really feel like it has much identity, and this I would say is true for both the routes that I have used. The climb up the final tower is a lot easier than it looks as if it’s going to be when approaching from the north-east (from Tarn Crag, as pictured here), but we are certainly not talking (say) Pike o’Stickle here. Otherwise the hinterland is a rather swampy moorland. It’s worth a visit, but it can be considered the point at which the whole Central Fells landscape begins to plateau out and get duller (and wetter) for walkers.

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[…] The walk saw me revisit a trio of summits that horseshoe around the valley of Easdale: Blea Rigg, Sergeant Man and Tarn Crag. Not the most dramatic walk perhaps but a very interesting one, with plenty to see, […]